


Shrapnel Scars and Forest Paths

by cheap-perfume-and-gasoline (burning_books)



Category: Leverage
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Eliot cares so much, Found Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:40:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29136453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burning_books/pseuds/cheap-perfume-and-gasoline
Summary: Eliot wonders about the team and himself as they try to figure out how to trust each other.
Relationships: Eliot Spencer & Team Leverage
Comments: 3
Kudos: 29





	Shrapnel Scars and Forest Paths

**Author's Note:**

> I've been thinking about this piece since I posted it, and how it deserved more attention than it got. So I finally got around to giving it that attention. It's expanded a bit, and it's better now, in my humble opinion.

They were all broken. That much was obvious. If they weren't broken they'd have all kept up the honest life. Eliot could picture a Sophie who had two kids and a picket, or more likely, a wrought-iron fence; a Hardison who designed video games or had some other insanely successful tech career out in Silicon Valley; a Parker with a blood family, a brother and parents who loved her. Hell, he could even see himself wearing the other half to Aimee's wedding ring, somewhere out in the country back home, breathing in that familiar Oklahoma summer heat. And easiest of all to picture was a Nathan who still worked insurance and still had a wife and a teenaged son.

But instead they'd all been broken by something too big to bear. They'd all taken fire, bullet shrapnel lodged in their chests. Eliot's job was to protect the team, but he could only do so much. And he certainly couldn't protect them from the fights they'd already fought. Most he could do for those was offer a steady hand. 

Hardison and Sophie's scars were nearly invisible, all but healed over; you'd never even know about the bits of metal still caught within them. Wounds closed up, stitches long gone, medical records shoved deep in lockboxes and forgotten under beds. And Eliot wasn't one to go digging for things that'd been buried, especially not that deep.

Hardison was easy enough to see through - he was all kindness, his heart bleeding through his sleeve. He worked hard, too, harder than any of 'em, and not for the thanks of it, seeing as he never got nearly enough of that. And he wasn't really the type to have something to prove. Maybe it just felt good, doing the right thing by the wrong method. Eliot couldn't say for sure. He just knew, as much as Hardison irritated him, it was good to have the hacker around. 

As for Sophie? It seemed like she let you in. It was easy to bet she was the one who wore her scars plain, wore her emotions on her face. But acting's about honesty, and Sophie was the worst actress Eliot had ever seen. No, her strengths were in lying, misdirection, obscuring the truth. Sophie was the type to paint on fake scars just to throw you off. Scars that changed, that moved, that disappeared altogether. She was layer on layer of smoke and mirrors and makeup and elaborate costumes. She kept her real self so far buried under silk and lace and kohl that Eliot wasn't convinced she herself knew real from fake anymore. 

You could see Parker's scars easy enough, like pale tissue puckering lines across her arms and face. It's easy enough to write her off for them. She's insane. Twenty pounds of crazy in a five-pound bag. But she got by, covered her scars when she needed to, but that wasn't often. Mostly she left 'em in plain sight and laughed at people's horror and concern. Occasionally she'd bump one that was still tender, but that was alright, because she had a team to lean on, now. She was still learning that, they all were - getting used to leaning on somebody else after being alone for so long. But Eliot had always had steady hands and a whole lot of patience. He could wait. 

Eliot kept his scars under wraps. Some of the wounds he'd suffered wouldn't ever heal properly, but he got into enough physical fights and took enough hits that it was impossible to tell the difference between the real shrapnel in his arm and the broken heart behind his bruised ribs. He made sure of that, and he damn well wasn't letting anyone look under the bandages. He trusted Nate's honesty, but that certainly didn't warrant a look into Eliot's past. And the rest of the team, well, he was still getting used to them. He'd be loyal and protect them, because that was the one thing knew how to do. He always did. Protecting others came easy as breathing. He'd already saved Hardison once, hadn't he? And he took the blows, fought their battles like a good little soldier. But beyond that? Well. All that was still up in the air. But he could wait. 

Nate's wounds were still fresh, and that was obvious to anyone who looked at him. He all but limped around, a bloody trail behind him. Worse than that, though, was the way he never let anything heal. Eliot understood, probably best out of all of 'em, that it was easier to hurt than let yourself go numb, but that didn't make it any easier to watch. Eliot would offer his strength to Nate, or at the very least a shoulder to lean on, but Nate seemed like he was hell-bent on proving to the world he could still walk on two broken legs. Trying to help Nate was like trying to stop a tornado from ripping up your trees, so Eliot held his tongue most of the time. But in the meantime, he'd wait. Nathan would come around. Eliot could wait. 

They'd all strayed off the honest path one way or another. And honestly, Eliot wasn't sure Parker even knew where the honest path was. She sure as hell hadn't seen even a glance of it until she met Nate. But Eliot didn't wanna dwell on that too much, or he'd remember the misery in her eyes when she talked about the orphans in Belgrade. He'd remember that there were some things he couldn't protect her from. That didn't stop the rage from bubbling up in his throat at the world and how it had treated her, but he was used to swallowing that feeling by now. He kept his mouth shut and set her back on her feet when she needed it.

Eliot didn't wanna dwell on the things that came in the night and dragged him into the underbrush, confused and disoriented, unable to fight his way back to the path. He didn't wanna think about the thorns and brambles buried so deep in his skin he was still trying to dig 'em out. He had a good sense of direction and a whole lot of patience, but sometimes you take a wrong turn and a massive oak crashes down behind you and cuts off your way back, leaving you with no way but forward. So he had no choice but to keep marching on deeper into the darkness of the brush. 

He couldn't pin down why Sophie had strayed. She seemed to him like a magpie who got caught up chasing some shiny bits, never even bothering with the path. She could see it just fine, all the way up there above the trees, but paths don't matter none to magpies. He wasn't about to ask her about it, neither.

Hardison was the sort who did bad things for good reasons, at least when he started out. He never meant to go off the honest path, but he was deep in the woods before he realized he'd lost the way, and he just didn't bother turning back after that. Until Nate found him, found them all, and pulled them out.

Nate, the honest man who refused to admit he'd turned thief. The man who picked up where the law left off, operating in the grey areas between right and wrong. He wasn't a black king or a white knight, even though he saw the world all laid out on a chessboard. He'd followed the ghost of his son into the wood, off the honest path. When the ghost disappeared and it all fell apart, he ran further in, blinded by rage and heartbreak, and once that wore off, he started fighting through the brush trying to get back out.

They all had their scars in the places where the world dug its claws in and tore pieces away. They'd all been hurt and broken and forgotten and abandoned. They'd all gotten lost somewhere in the thicket and darkness of the undergrowth. But they'd found each other, hadn't they? Even in the depths, even bruised and broken and dragging themselves along. They'd found each other.

And Eliot, whether he trusted these four people chance had given him or not, wasn't about to let that go. He'd keep them safe, no matter what. He'd seen these woods before, and he had steady hands, plenty of patience, and a good sense of direction, and most of all he could fight. So he'd fight, and he'd hope to any god who'd listen that they'd all see the sunlight again.

**Author's Note:**

> Some friends of mine wanted some season one fic content, since I keep writing stuff with spoilers and they're not that far along. So, Sylvia and Nami, this one's for you, hope y'all enjoy it.


End file.
